OP here: To answer the bolded question, the bride (my friend at the time) was of the same culture/race as me. I believe we were even the same religion. We were of (I believe)relatively the same economic class. We'd both belonged to the same youth group thing (4-H). We'd gone to the same state college. We'd worked together, where I was technically her supervisor, but it was pretty informal.

With all of those similarities, that's probably why I felt somewhat blindsided when I walked into the reception and it became apparent that I wasn't a close enough friend to warrant an invitation to the dinner.

Thank you again for all of your responses.

I can't help but wonder how the bride felt about you skipping the ceremony and showing up expecting dinner & a dance with your boyfriend. Maybe she was equally "blindsided". This seems like a pot/kettle situation to me, so I have a hard time understanding your feelings of upset over not being invited to the dinner.

Wow.

First of all, I was NOT "showing up expecting dinner & a dance with your boyfriend". That is a big assumption, and an incorrect one. No, I did not go to the ceremony, and I stated that in the subsequent post along with the reasoning, which I will state again: because the wedding was at something like 2 or 3 in the afternoon, as I recall, and the dance was at the standard 8:00 at night. With the fact that all venues were at least a 30 minute drive from my home and there was a several hour break between the two events, I had to choose one (I wasn't going to make two separate trips and I wasn't going to find something to do for 4-5 hours, while dressed up). For a variety of reasons, including the fact that I felt I might have more of a chance to actually talk to the bride at the dance more than at the ceremony, I elected to go to the dance portion. And there was no RSVP, so it's not like the bride knew to expect me or not.

I showed up around 8:00 (or possibly even a bit later) for the dance, with my boyfriend and my gift, and they hadn't started yet. I did NOT try to crash the dinner and expect them to feed me....not in any way, shape or form. I was not invited for that and I knew it. And my boyfriend didn't dance or drink, so the implication that I just wanted a fun evening out couldn't be further from the truth.

I apologize to anyone who might be confused for the way I phrased it in the OP. No subterfuge was intended. It was simply a way my mother had phrased it when I was growing up; when she said 'go to the wedding', she generally meant the dinner/dance. I guess that phrasing rubbed off on me.

I honestly don't get the defensiveness...or the accusation that I'm making an assumption .

You stated that you thought you were good enough friends that you assumed that if she was having a dinner that you would be in invited. I merely pointed out that the bride may have assumed you were good enough friends for you to attend her ceremony. Nowhere did I accuse you of trying to crash, so I'm not at all sure where that came from.

In your original post about not attending the ceremony you said you had a prior commitment, but your latest post makes it sound like you just didn't want to be inconvenienced.

To be blindsided and upset by the fact that you weren't invited to the dinner for someone whose ceremony you didnt feel a close enough friendship with to prioritize seems like a contradiction to me.

For all those saying that what was done to the OP was rude, do consider that the OP could not inform us about the cultural background of the couple.

It is very likely that they were Americans of several generations, and therefor should be familiar enough with US etiquette, but if they were not, it is hard to call them rude, since there are many places where this is not rude. It is even possible that in some areas of the US, where there are big groups from one coubntry living close together, this is also still common etiquette.

I agree. And, as someone else said earlier, customs do vary from country to country. I would consider it rude to expect attendants to pay for their own attire, but if I were in the US, I would realise that was how it is done. When in Rome.....

I honestly don't get the defensiveness...or the accusation that I'm making an assumption .

You stated that you thought you were good enough friends that you assumed that if she was having a dinner that you would be in invited. I merely pointed out that the bride may have assumed you were good enough friends for you to attend her ceremony. Nowhere did I accuse you of trying to crash, so I'm not at all sure where that came from.

In your original post about not attending the ceremony you said you had a prior commitment, but your latest post makes it sound like you just didn't want to be inconvenienced.

To be blindsided and upset by the fact that you weren't invited to the dinner for someone whose ceremony you didnt feel a close enough friendship with to prioritize seems like a contradiction to me.

The "showing up and expecting dinner" comment is what made it seem as though you were accusing me of trying to crash the meal; that comment certainly paints a picture of entitlement. As I've said several times, I didn't expect the meal. There was nothing about a meal on the invitation so I knew not to expect one. Your words implied that I walked in, acting huffy that there was no food for me. That didn't sit right with me, and yes, I wanted to defend myself against what I felt was an unfair assumption about my manners.

Also, 'blindsided' is perhaps correct when presented with the evidence that the party had already been going on for hours, but 'upset' is a bit too strong. Disappointed and, as I've stated, uncomfortable are the words that come to mind. It's not like I ran to the restroom in tears when I saw the evidence of the dinner; I merely tried to put on a happy face and try to find mutual friends to talk to, along with the bride and groom.

As I also said, there were a lot of factors that factored into my decision to attend the dance instead of the ceremony. Distance and time lapse between events were the biggies, but there was also the chance of talking to the bride more at the dance, conflicting plans for the wedding part but not the dance part, and also a boyfriend who attended church on Saturdays and generally had church activities which lasted into the afternoon. I chose to go to one of the events and support the couple on their special day. That was what I felt was important.

You're not sure why I felt the way I did, and that is certainly your right. It's not part of the original question, though, which was not about my motives or why I chose to only attend the later of the two events to which I was invited. The question was about if two tiers of invitations are appropriate, and if so, how it can be done so that it's not so blatantly obvious to the second-tier people that they are second-tier.